Scots judo star bit off part of man's ear in fight with group dressed as Jesus and his apostles, court hears

CRAIG Stewart, 23, who hopes to fight at the Commonwealth Games, claimed his alleged victim Kieran Clare and his friends, who were dressed in robes, wigs and sandals for Halloween, started the trouble outside a club.

A SCOTS judo star yesterday admitted biting off part of a man’s ear in a fight with a group dressed as Jesus and his apostles – but said it was self-defence.

Craig Stewart, 23, who hopes to fight
at the Commonwealth Games, said: “I was surrounded by Jesuses. I was doing everything to get away.

“I was panicking. I was scared to death. I thought I bit his hand.”

Stewart
claimed his alleged victim Kieran Clare and eight of his friends, who were dressed in robes, wigs and sandals for Halloween, started the trouble outside a nightclub.

He said Clare, 22, ridiculed his “cauliflower ears” and punched him to the ground, and the rest of the group then kicked and punched him.

He also accused Clare of throttling him with one hand while sticking a thumb in his eye with the other.

Clare has had ear op

Stewart said he rarely drank, but had two pints of beer, a “polite swig” of a friend’s Buckfast and four shots of
Aftershock that night. He denied shouting, “Beat it, you bead-rattling b******s”, at Clare’s group before the incident.

He
admitted under cross-examination that he was responsible for biting a 1.8-inch chunk of cartilage out of Clare’s ear. He added that he left the scene immediately and did not tell police he had been assaulted.

Stewart,
of Harthill, West Lothian, denies repeatedly biting Clare outside the Twig nightclub in Bathgate on October 27, 2012, and punching and kicking him to his severe injury and permanent disfigurement.

Co-accused
Ben Dahle, 21, had also been accused of serious assault, but he admitted the lesser charge of breach of the peace after Stewart’s evidence at Livingston Sheriff Court.

Clare earlier told the jury he was scarred for life and surgeons had rebuilt the missing part of his ear with cartilage from one of his ribs.